The industrial espionage case involving GM and VW began with the hiring of Jose Ignacio Lopez, an employee of GM subsidiary Adam Opel, by VW as production director.
Ferdinand Piech had just been installed as Chairman of Volkswagen when he hired Lopez.
Lopez brought with him to VW seven former GM employees including his close friend, Jorge Manuel Gutierrez.
When GM protested the recruiting of their employees, private mediation was set up between the two companies.
The situation became more serious when top- secret documents were found missing from GM that described plans to build a new model car.
Then state prosecution officials discovered four boxes of papers, including secrets documents containing plans to build the car where Gutierrez and Piazza, another former GM employee were staying.
This led to investigations and counter charges on both sides of the ocean followed by civil and criminal court cases.
Lopez was found innocent during his first trial in Germany, but faced further charges.
A court case was also brought against leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, for making public allegations of spying against Lopez.
Der Spiegel later presented evidence in state court in a bid not to be stopped from reporting.
The case reached the highest levels in both countries including the US Justice Dept. and the FBI investigating mail and wire fraud.
The legal cases soon became bogged down in mountains of papers and transatlantic issues between the countries involving lawyers and politicians.
As of October 1994, nothing had been resolved.
